Barry Lewis: Baseball great Robinson had Catskills link

Sunday

Apr 14, 2013 at 2:00 AMApr 14, 2013 at 10:50 AM

Jackie Roosevelt Robinson found sanctuary from ugliness at Grossinger's.

The first black player in Major League Baseball was able to escape the rabid bigotry he received from the fans in the stands, opposing players on the diamond and even teammates in the clubhouse, when he and wife Rachel would travel up to the mountains and relax at the famed Catskill resort.

“Jackie told me when he was first invited to come to the hotel, he was very hesitant because of the abuse he had taken when he was playing,” said Elaine Grossinger Etess, who with her parents, Harry and Jennie, shared many dinners in the 1950s with the Robinsons.

The courage that Jackie Robinson displayed in those critical first two years when he was brought up to the majors by the Brooklyn Dodgers hits the big screen this weekend with the opening of “42.”

Speaking from her home now in Boca Raton, Fla., Elaine says Jackie and Rachel often shared the anguish they endured, the frustration they felt – and the relief they experienced at the hotel in Liberty.

“They would play baseball, then the team would go to some hotel and he had to go off by himself – he couldn't eat dinner with them. And he just was hesitant, but he did come (to Grossinger's). Of course for him, it was home away from home,” she said.
When Jennie Grossinger was honored on TV's “This is Your Life,” Jackie Robinson was among the surprise guests to pay tribute.
Rachel Robinson acknowledged what that special relationship with the Grossinger family meant in her 1996 memoir, “Jackie Robinson: An Intimate Portrait.”
She writes: “I doubt that she (Jennie) knew or could have fully appreciated how important the invitation was to Jack and me in the early Fifties, as we saved to buy and then furnish a new house. We could afford very few vacations, and there were not any family facilities to rival the Big G.”
blewis@th-record.com
Jackie Robinson, of the Brooklyn Dodgers, steals home plate during an Aug. 22, 1948, game against the Boston Braves at Ebbets Field in New York. Robinson was the first black player in Major League Baseball.
A publicity photo from Warner Bros. Pictures shows Chadwick Boseman as Jackie Robinson at bat in the new movie, “42.”
Photo: The Associated Press